Cumberland Square Eight (L*) – England & Scotland

*a Living dance is a 1st Generation dance that is still performed in the country of origin (or immigrant communities) as part of a social event like a wedding where others can participate (not for an audience) by people who learned the dance informally (from friends and relatives by observation and imitation, not in a classroom situation). For more information, click here and here.

About Cumberland

Wikipedia: The first record of the term ‘Cumberland’ appears in AD 945, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the area was ceded to Malcolm I, king of Alba (Scotland), by King Edmund I of England. As with ‘Cymru’, the native Welsh name for Wales, the names ‘Cumberland’ and ‘Cumbria’ are derived from kombroges in Common Brittonic, which originally meant “compatriots”.

The Dance

A popular dance in North England and Scotland. How old is it? Nobody knows, but this article on Cumberland Square Eight says ” people started researching what people were actually dancing in the villages…. Many of these were quadrilles and other old dances which had become popular in particular areas and evolved into local dances; that may have been the origin of this dance….This seems to be one of the dances that has remained unchanged for the last 100 years, The description in the Community Dance Manual is exactly the same, and that is exactly how I first learnt it in the 1960s, and still call it today.”